Parents seeking a place for their children at leading Chinese schools are being forced to take tests, prove their ancestors' academic credentials and even show they are not fat. At least two private schools in Shanghai have been admonished by authorities for testing parents and carrying out intrusive surveys, and applicants at a third school complained about a "fat parent" criterion. "They check parents' body shapes," a parent applying to Shanghai's Qibao Foreign Language School said, according to a screenshot of social media on thepaper.cn website. "The reason is that fat parents display poor self-management skills." Education officials rebuked Qingpu World Foreign Language School and the nearby Yangpu Primary School for investigating applicants' family histories and setting logic tests for parents. China's increasingly wealthy middle class often take desperate measures to give their children a good education in the hope of landing a place at a renowned foreign university. For most...
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